Friday, September 30, 2011

This is a large and quiet pleasant place situated on a beautiful beachfront just outside of Quy Nhon City. It is open to visitors (there is a small cover charge) and along the beach are cafes and restaurants that cater to visitors.There is also a fascinating sculpture walk which has a series of busts of all of the great pioneers of medicine.

It's well worth a visit if you find yourself in Quy Nhon, one of Vietnam's best-kept secrets. People who travel to Vietnam rarely take the time to visit Binh Dinh province, which is a shame because it is a really lovely part of the country, and has a rich and fascinating history.

Tuesday, September 27, 2011

I was in Canberra last week and dropped by the Sakyamuni Buddhist Centre, Canberra's largest Buddhist temple (and getting bigger). The abbott there is the Venerable Thich Quang Ba, one of Australia's senior Buddhist monastics, and a revered figure in the overseas Vietnamese community. Thich Quang Ba hails from Binh Dinh province in Central Vietnam, a place I write about a lot in my book about Vietnam, Destination Saigon.

If you ever travel to Vietnam, Binh Dinh is well worth visiting - well off the usual tourist track, it is a beautiful little spot, and filled with a rich religious history.

Sakyamuni Buddhist Centre was established in Canberra in the early 80s, and at the moment is undergoing extensive renovation and re-building. When it's all finished it will look amazing. But just at the moment it is a building site and that's about it.

Forgotten for centuries in the jungles of Cambodia, Angkor Wat was once the world's greatest and most sophisticated city. Re-discovered by French explorers in the nineteenth century, this massive stone structure was both a political and a religious centre, built to illustrate the creation myths of Hinduism, and later accommodating many of the schools of Buddhism. In this fascinating talk Walter will take us through the stories, history and meanings of the great temple of Angkor Wat.

Walter Mason is a travel writer whose book on Vietnam, Destination Saigon, was named by the Sydney Morning Herald as one of the 10 best travel books of 2010.Walter is currently at work on his next book, a spiritual journey through Cambodia. He is also in the final stages of writing his doctoral dissertation at the University of Western Sydney's Writing & Society Research Group, where he is writing a history of self-help literature in Australia."

Thursday, September 8, 2011

They were hosting a book busking marathon, and I was privileged to open proceedings with 15 minutes reading the funniest pieces from Nancy Mitford's comic masterpiece The Pursuit of Love, one of my all-time favourite books.It was all in aid of Indigenous Literacy Day, a fundraising effort to help raise literacy rates among indigenous communities in Australia.What a star-studded lineup it was. I also caught crime novelist P. M. Newton reading a fascinating series of letters by Aboriginal leaders from Australia's past, radio personality Robbie Buck doing a very spirited reading from Richard Flanagan's Gould's Book of Fish, and novelist Charlotte Wood reading a passage from Kim Scott's award-winning That Deadman Dance and, excitingly, a tantalising snippet from her soon-to-be-released novel Animal People!

Jon Page, the owner of Pages & Pages, is to be thanked for his energy and enthusiasm throughout the day, and for so consietently supporting such a good cause.

The event is to help raise money to increase literacy levels and awareness of literacy issues within the Australian community.

What would I like you to do? Come along and hear me and have a laugh and maybe even make a contribution to a very worthy cause. All the money raised through sponsoring me or other readers goes to the Indigenous Literacy Foundation.